On the morning of the ninth of April, 1809, the Church bells tolled fiercely, summoning the men of the Imperial County of Tyrol to gather in defense of their country. The Heir of Revolutionary Nationalism, the tyrant styling himself as Emperor, had suppressed the ancient liberties and Austrian loyalty of the Tyrol for long enough. The next day Imperial forces under the command of Archduke Karl von Teschen crossed the river Inn, beginning the War of the Fifth Coalition. In South Tyrol an army was gathering, under the command of a former militia Captain Andreas Hofer, the Innkeeper of Passeiertal.

When Napoleon marched victoriously into Italy, his second-in-command was being forced back in defeat from the Rhine by none other than the Holy Roman Emperor’s own brother.

Considered one of the greatest military commanders of the Napoleonic Era, Archduke Karl Ludwig Johann was born on the fifth of September 1771, in the Duchy of Tuscany. His father, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, then the Duke of Tuscany, sent him in his youth to live with his childless aunt and uncle in Vienna. He later moved to the Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), where he began his military career, fighting against the army of the Revolutionary French Republic. Continue reading →